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Chocolate

This delicious Fudge Brownie Bundt Cake was inspired by a recipe that came free with the fabulous new Nordic Ware Bundt tin that I brought! They call it a tunnel of hazelnut fudge cake. From what google tells me, tunnel of fudge cakes are a very popular recipe in USA, made famous in the 1966 when one won second place in a Pillsbury baking competition.

I changed the recipe slightly from the Nordic Ware recipe, by using a mix of hazelnuts and walnuts. The original recipe uses walnuts and the Nordic Ware recipe uses hazelnuts so I thought I would use a mix of the two. I also topped it with a white chocolate ganache and decorated it with chopped mini eggs. Perfect for Easter.

This cake is unbelievable! It is like a soft gooey brownie in cake form. When you slice it, it has a ‘tunnel’ of fudgy nutty chocolate running through it. It is best served warm but is also delicious served cold (and I am sure hot too!) I discovered that it freezes really well when sliced up and put in freezer bags. You can just take a slice out of the freezer every time you want one and let it come up to room temperature.

As I explained earlier, I used a mixture of walnuts and hazelnuts to make this cake. Although I left the skins on the walnuts, I would suggest that you buy blanched roasted hazelnuts as you don’t want to leave skins on the hazelnuts (they may give the cake a bitter taste). If you can’t find blanched hazelnuts, then you will have to de-skin them yourself and that’s a messy job! Unfortunately, no shops around here stocked blanched hazelnuts so I had to blanch and roast my own. I used this method which was easy compared to other ways I’ve tried in the past, but I still ended up with a purple kitchen.

For the white chocolate ganache

Instructions

For the cake

Preheat the oven to 180C / 160C fan/ 350F. Prepare a 10 inch bunt pan by lightly buttering it then giving it a very light dusting of cocoa powder. Knock any excess cocoa out.

Place the skinned, roasted hazelnuts and walnuts into a processor and pulse until they are very finely chopped.

In the bowl of a stand mixer beat the butter, granulated sugar and light brown sugar at a medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Turn down the mixer to a low speed and add the eggs and egg yolks one at a time. Add one or two level tablespoons of flour to the mix if it starts to separate.

Add the oil and vanilla and beat to combine.

Sift the powdered sugar and cocoa powder into the bowl and beat until just combined.

In a separate bowl place the flour, salt and chopped nuts and mix with a spoon to combine (do this so that the nuts don't clump together when mixing into the wet mixture)

Take the bowl off the stand mixer and gently fold the flour & nut mix into the wet ingredients until they are just combined.

Spoon the batter into your prepared bundt pan and place in the middle of the preheated oven.

The cake needs to cook for 40 - 45 minutes. As the cake is designed to be very moist and fudgy in the middle you can not test to see whether it is done by using a cake tester. Instead, wait until the cake has started to pull away from the cake tin.

Remove the cake from the oven and leave in the cake tin for 45 - 60 minutes. This is important as turning the cake out too early may result in some of the middle oozing out!

Once the cake has cooled for 45 minutes or so turn it out onto the serving plate you want to use.

For the chocolate ganache

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place into a heatproof bowl.

Place the cream in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Pour over the chopped chocolate and leave for 1 minute. Stir very gently in a circular motion until the the chocolate has melted and has combined with the cream.

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